What has ACSA Done for me Lately

Senate Constitutional Amendment 3 (Leno)SCA 3 (Leno) moved
forward this week. The bill would allow school districts, community college
districts, and county offices of education to levy a parcel tax on real
property if it is approved by 55 percent of voters in the district or county,
rather than the currently required two-thirds vote. The bill passed out of
the Senate Elections and Constitutional Amendments Committee and now moves to
the Senate Rules Committee, where it will sit until January, in all
likelihood. That is because, while it is clear that the Senate intends to
move this (and various other) Constitutional Amendments relating to lowering
voter thresholds through the legislative process, Senate President Pro Tem
Darrell Steinberg has said the Senate will not move them to the Assembly until
next year. We expect Democrats to use their two-thirds control of both houses
to make this a priority in 2014. Recent polling has shown voter support for the
change.

If approved by the Legislature, the proposed Constitutional
change would go before voters in 2014. If approved, LEAs can expect to use the
lower approval threshold at the next regularly scheduled election,
which for most districts will be in 2016. We also know the Assembly is looking
to expand the concept by giving LEAs the authority to not only pass parcel
taxes at the 55 percent rate, but potentially other local taxes at the same
reduced rate.

ACSA
@ UCLA
On Sunday, July 22, ACSA invades UCLA for the 23rd consecutive
summer. On Monday, approximately 50 principals will arrive for the Principals’
Institute, and on Wednesday, the first ever Urban Institute will begin with its
theme of “One to World,” an exploration of the integration of technology and
the Common Core Standards.

Participants
in the Principals’ Institute will be guided by featured presenters Paula
Rutherford, Ed Porter, Eric Sheninger, Kim Marshall, Eugene Garcia, George
Manthey, Mike Schmoker and Harry Weinberg as they explore the role of the
principal in creating strong communities of learning. An integral part of
both Institutes will be the opportunity to explore the ideas presented in depth
with a small team of colleagues guided by an expert facilitator. This
year the Principals’ Institute welcomes two new team leaders, Francisco Meza
from South Whittier School District and Minerva Gandara from Placentia-Yorba Linda
USD, who will join veteran leaders Jeff Crane, Jeanne Yamamoto, Las Saunders,
May Arakaki and Ena Harris. And, of course, it is ACSA’s Program
Coordinator Danelle Bowron who holds everything together.

The Urban Institute was created by ACSA’s Urban Education
Committee. Pearson is a sponsor of the event and has worked with the committee
to bring a great group of presenters, including Cathie Dillender, Scott
Drossos, David Haglund, Judi Paredes, Jay McPhail, Tom Greaves, Chuck
Obeso-Bradley, Jacob Bruno and Charles Tippie.

Two EL Bills Still Moving Through the Legislative Process

Many legislators are feeling extremely satisfied that they were
able to focus resources to the poorest of our students, especially English
Language Learners. The Legislature still has time to do more, and that appears
to be taking place through a few bills specifically directed at these
populations. Those include:

Assembly Bill 899 (Weber) would require the superintendent of
public instruction, on or before Jan. 1, 2015, to recommend modifications to
the English Language Development Standards to align with the Common Core State
Standards in mathematics and the Next Generation Science Standards. Assembly
Bill 124 (Fuentes) created a process to align ELD with standards for English
Learners. AB 899 would replicate the alignment process of Assembly Bill 124 but
for math and science. The bill calls for the SPI to convene a group of experts,
including teachers and administrators, for the purpose of implementing the
measure. The funds to cover the cost for the SPI panel have yet to be
identified. ACSA is supporting the bill as it prepares for its hearing in the
Senate Education Committee on July 3.

Senate Bill 344 (Padilla) calls for, commencing in the 2014-15
fiscal year as a condition of receiving supplemental funds for English Learners
under the Limited English Proficient Student Program, that a school district
applying to the CDE for these funds must adopt a master plan for how the
supplemental funds will be spent. The plan must include all expenditures
of these funds by the school district and at each affected school within the
district. The bill specifies the information to be included in the master plan
and requires that the plan include input from teachers, principals,
administrators, EL advisory committees, school site councils and parents, both
district-wide and from each school. ACSA, CSBA and the Central Valley Education
Coalition have together taken an oppose position on the bill (Click here to review letter). SB 344 was
mentioned in the budget trailer bills dealing with accountability for the Local
Control Funding Formula. No connection between the final budget deal and
the language in SB 344 was found, and therefore the measure is still alive in
the process. The bill has now been set for hearing in August after the summer
break, providing more time for the author to try and work with the opposition.

Member Services Successfully Completes Another Year-End Process

The Member Services Department has just successfully completed
its annual year-end process. This process involves extensive work in
preparation for the upcoming fiscal year and begins in February with the
collection of member data such as annual salaries, pay plans and member
category changes. During the process, membership dues rates are also updated
for the following fiscal year. All member data collected between the months of
February to May are kept in a holding file until mid-June, when staff works
meticulously to enter data for more than 14,500 members. One staffer
described the process as "an endless tsunami of member information
updates." Because the work can be both daunting and tedious,
numerous checks and balances are put into place to ensure that data collected
has been entered into the system accurately. When the process is
completed, old data is then purged from the system and archived, and the
membership database is once again ready for a new year. A very big thanks
to the staff in the Burlingame processing unit for their hard work!

Talking Points for Upcoming Region and Charter meetings

With hundreds of ACSA members attending Region and Charter
meetings in July, we want everyone to have talking points to answer the
question: “What has ACSA done for me lately?” The truth is, we’ve done a lot!
ACSA continues to work hard for members, and we’re proud of what we’ve
accomplished in recent state budget negotiations and with the Local Control
Funding Formula. We also want our members to know the latest information about
our Strategic Planning work and about our new One Voice Initiative. To help our
leaders share our latest news, we’ve produced and posted talking points at www.acsa.org/lcfftalkingpoints.
If you need more information, please contact Julie White at jwhite@acsa.org.

ACSA Finances Update

A few things have been happening in the last month or so related
to ACSA’s Finances as follows:

Bank of America recently extended our $750,000 revolving line of
credit to December 31, 2013.

In a continuation of our efforts toward greater transparency, we
expanded the posting of financial data such as budgets, trends, audit reports,
region reports and rebate history on our website under “ACSA Finances” with a
cover email from the CFO to Region Leaders.

We closed our books for May, 2013 with net revenues for
ACSA/FEA/SASS of about $351,000 for the first 11 months of this fiscal year,
which is about $25,000 higher than last fiscal year.

Financial statements through May will be part of the packet for
the board meeting in late July. A region summary report will be sent after
the board meeting.

The market value of SASS’s investments has increased about
$167,000 this fiscal year or about 14 percent as of the end of May to about
$1.35 million.

The downtown Sacramento commercial property values should
increase now that the Sacramento Kings are staying and a new arena will be
built about five blocks from our building.